PATCHOULI

10.05.2019

With its mystic odor, patchouli (botanical name Pogostemon cablin) is a well-known plant of the Lamiaceae family cultivated mostly in Southeast Asia. The name ‘patchouli’ originates from the Indian Tamil language ‘patchai’ and ‘ellai’, which respectively means ‘green’ and ‘leaves’. This unique plant was first defined by botanists in the Southeast Asian country of Philippines in 1845 [1, 2]. Due to its increased popularity and use as essential oil, the patchouli plant is now cultivated in many countries that has a worm or tropical climate. Countries such as China, Indonesia, India, Malesia, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and even countries in South America and the Caribbean now widely cultivate this plant [3]. The scent of a famous Indian ink also stems from this plant. The first appearance of this plant in Europe dates back to 1800’s. In ancient times, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic cultures had a belief that this plant’s oil prevented the spread of contagious diseases. The leaves were also used as insecticides to protect many goods from being perished while they were shipped for long journeys. The health benefits of patchouli essential oil comes in many forms and can be attributed to its properties as an antidepressant, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, aphrodisiac, deodorant, diuretic, fungicide, and as a sedative. It is also known to heal wounds in the skin as untreated wounds could potentially lead to serious infections. Perhaps additional health benefits are cosmetic in nature such that the oil can be used to treat the skin by contracting the skin pores.

Another very important usage area of this unique essential oil is the fragrance industry. Patchouli oil is a component of many well-known perfume creations. In addition to its distinctive odor, it is used as a “fixative” to stabilize the evaporation rate of the other highly volatile molecules within the fragrance formulation.

Its addition creates a well-balanced mixture that makes the final odorant product long-lasting [4]. It is this combination of physical and chemical beneficial properties that make this essential oil the preferred addition to the trendy formulations created by many perfumers. A few of the well-known commercially sold perfumes that contain patchouli oil are Patchouli Absolue (Tom Ford), Rush (Gucci), Patchouli Impérial (Christian Dior), Euphoria Women (Calvin Klein), Portrait of a Lady (Frederic Malle), and Angel (Thierry Mugler). The essential oil of patchouli is extracted by steam distillation of the dried leaves of the Pogostemon cablin patchouli plants. The yield is generally 2% of the and the resulting essential oil is usually thick and ranges in color from light yellow to a deep amber or brown [1]. The oil carries a sweet, woody, somewhat spicy, and grassy odor. Depending on the species and the area of origin, the basic natural chemical components of patchouli essential oil are alpha-patchoulene, beta-patchoulene, alpha-guaiane, alpha-bulnesene, caryophyllene, norpatchoulenol, patchouli alcohol, seychellene, and pogostol. PAÇULİ

The making of a conceptual fragrance is akin to composing a musical symphony. As we all know, a musical composer selects instruments within his/her orchestra and assigns musical notes to each of the instruments to be played in unison. Likewise, a perfumer selects different natural oils (i.e. musical instruments) available from all over the world with each oil containing hundreds of naturally occurring chemicals, i.e. distinct musical notes.

Just as a delightful symphony composed of thousands of notes is heard as a whole by the listener, the scent of a created fragrance is also smelled and felt as a whole selected made from dozens of different natural oils and chemical entities within them.

At the R&D Center of MG Gülçiçek, we aim to increase the number and the yield of raw materials used by refining the natural oil compositions by different distillation systems. This approach not only is beneficial for our raw material count, but, more importantly, it gives new and different olfactory alternatives to the perfumers. Consequently, one of our recent R&D focus areas have been the distillation of patchouli oil. Patchouli alcohol is the most important and unique component of patchouli oil. Based on the geographical growth area and the climatic changes, the percent ratio of patchouli alcohol in the oil may vary between 26% to 44%. Studies established between our perfumers and chemists have shown that the formulas that are created with patchouli oil which contains higher amounts of patchouli alcohol have yielded different olfactory notes. After we established production protocols with patchouli alcohol ratios of 26-44%, we further experimented and increased the patchouli alcohol content of patchouli oil to a maximum of 70% by fractional distillation and we obtained yet another quality level of patchouli oil. In a relentless fashion indicative of MG Gulcicek as a whole, additional experimental studies in our labs showed that we can further achieve 95% and 99,9% patchouli alcohol ratios by further purification of the raw materials with superior physical and unique odor characteristics of the end product. PAÇULİ